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Monday, December 9, 2013

Media Monday: Difference and Fashion

It's no secret that I love fashion blogs, so when I came across this Pro Infirimis project, I couldn't get it off of my mind and I had to share it with you! I am thrilled at the prospect of seeing non-traditional models in fashion because as I've said elsewhere on the blog, "I like different." Different is beautiful and this project celebrates differences. Projects like this one remind me that weare changing the world and how the world sees disability and difference.

Pro Infirmis, an organization for the disabled, created a series of mannequins based on real people with physical disabilities, working with individuals like Jasmine Rechsteiner, a Miss Handicap winner who has spine malformations, and Erwin Aljukić, an actor with brittle bone disease. The project's title? "Because Who Is Perfect? Get Closer."

The beautiful process was documented in a video (watch it above), capturing the joy of the models seeing their own unique figures recreated for the first time. But the best part of it all is that the mannequins were actually placed in store windows today, filling the shopfronts on Zurich's main downtown street, Bahnhofstrasse, in honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities today.

"Seeing it there for real is quite a shock," said one of the video participants. And that's exactly the point. Raising awareness of those with disabilities, specifically in the realm of fashion, is a conversation that's already begun with groups such as Models of Diversity, which aims to bring models of all shapes, sizes and colors to the fashion runways and media.

Outspoken individuals like Kelly Knox, the winner of BBC's "Britain's Missing Top Model," and Angela Rockwood, who returned to her modeling career with a Nordstrom campaign after becoming a C4-5 quadriplegic, have also made their voices known.

It's still an uphill battle to make the mannequins in our store windows reflect the shoppers passing by. But "Because Who Is Perfect? Get Closer" and the Swiss stores who participated prove that it can definitely be done.

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